The choice facing MPs would seem to be this: Pursue the option presented by the Speaker, in which members must only have the courage to stand if they wish to speak, or adopt a system that formally regulates who gets to speak during those 15 minutes each day?

I say choice because it is not clear to me whether the two approaches could easily co-exist. If the House adopts a formal system to determine who speaks during statements by members, what power would the Speaker have to recognize any other MP? As the Speaker said yesterday, “Members elect a Speaker from among the membership to apply rules they themselves have devised and can amend.”

So MPs might have to very quickly decide which approach best serves their interests. Meanwhile, as Mark Jarvis tweeted last night, it is not so simple that the Speaker’s ruling should necessarily result in a rush of maverick behaviour.

I think this was the best possible outcome and is a better result than what wld have resulted from sending the matter to committee. As per @acoyne, the ruling makes clear that the Speaker has undeniable prerogative to determine who speaks in the House. As it should be. It also makes it clear that members’ speech, with a few reasonable constraints, should not be encumbered. Most importantly, the right of each individual member to seek the floor is not dependent on any other member, i.e., the party whips.

So there are now two things to watch. First, whether we see a surge in members rising on their own volition, seeking to speak. This goes to the distinction @acoyne drew b/t decisions of individuals& systematic incentives in his excellent piece http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2013/03/31/andrew-coyne-mob-rule-versus-mark-warawa/ …While there is no disagreeing that any member is free to set their own behavior and, collectively, revolutionize the way the House operates… My hunch is that for the most part, the carrots and sticks available to party leaders that we detailed in DtC remain powerful incentives. I expect more episodic than consistent cases of MPs getting up out of turn and offside of their respective parties.

Anecdotally, it appears Canadians don’t much care about this and that’s why leaders feel they can get away with it. Prime Minister Stephen Harper brought prorogation back into the vernacular and was re-elected with a majority in 2011. Anyone who spends any time in Ottawa knows that too much time is wasted here on picayune partisan posturing and MPs do have responsibilities in their constituencies. But these 1,066 men and women are elected to represent our interests in a Parliamentary forum…

Canadians are disengaging from politics. That could be because they rarely see their representatives in action. Or perhaps our politicians are using this disengagement as cover for their empty legislatures. Neither conclusion is good news for those who lament the erosion of democracy in this country.

Tim notes Mark Jarvis’ writing on the BC legislature. Here again is my post on the gradual decline of sitting days for the House of Commons. Ned Franks wrote a paper a few years ago on sitting days and parliamentary productivity and you can download that paper here.

Of course, this isn’t purely a mathematical exercise. It is easier to argue that the House of Commons should be sitting more often if what goes on when it is sitting is widely regarded as meaningful. And so this is a two-part argument: the House would likely be more meaningful if it sat more often and if its proceedings were made more meaningful there would likely be more reason for it to be in session. What goes on when the House is sitting is a problem. Here is what I wrote two years ago. And here is what Ned Franks wrote around the same time. It’s all related to the question I asked then: does this place still matter? I argue it should. But that it doesn’t presently matter as much as it should.

For further reading, here is a list I compiled in putting together my piece in 2011.

]]>http://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/nobodys-home/feed/0The absentee B.C. legislaturehttp://www.macleans.ca/politics/the-absentee-b-c-legislature/
http://www.macleans.ca/politics/the-absentee-b-c-legislature/#commentsSun, 13 Jan 2013 17:12:10 +0000macleans.cahttp://www2.macleans.ca/?p=336019Why we should be worried about a government that sits for only 19 days in a full calendar year

Mike de Jong, the Government House Leader and Minister of Finance, announced last week on Twitter that Christy Clark’s Liberal government in British Columbia planned to recall the Legislative Assembly on February 12 for a speech from the throne and to sit until March 14.

The legislature would then be dissolved on April 16. How do we know this? Basically, it is a matter of counting backwards. The province’s Constitution Act requires a general election to be held on the second Tuesday in May every 4 years. That falls on May 14 this year. And, the province’s Election Act requires a 28-day campaign period.

Taking into account that the B.C. legislature doesn’t sit Fridays, and the usual spring break, the parliamentary calendar shows a maximum of 24 sitting days before dissolution. But there is a report that the legislature will not sit at all in April. That would mean there will only be 19 sitting days before the election in June, one of which will be the speech from the throne and another the budget, assuming the current plan holds.

Why is this important? Why should we care about the technical minutiae of the B.C. parliamentary schedule for the upcoming weeks?

Because the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia has already not sat since May 31, 2012. The cancellation of the fall sitting by Premier Clark, left open the question as to whether the legislature would sit at all before an election this May.

It is not simply that the legislature will have only sat for 19 days this spring, it is that B.C. legislature will have only sat for a total of 19 days in nearly a full calendar year (between May 31, 2012, when it last rose and the election on May 14, 2013).

This would appear to fit the trend I wrote about previously of first ministers seeing legislatures as an undue burden, whose work they are free to inhibit as they fancy. And yet, there has barely been a murmur of discontent.

As part of its year-end wrap-up, the CBC nominated 10 stories for the B.C. news story of the year. The 10 stories offered up are fine; many even very important, like the pipeline debate, the Haida Gwaii earthquakes and Amanda Todd’s tragic death. But that the B.C. legislature had not sat since May (and, at that time, had no timeline for sitting again) did not even make the list.

Some might suggest this is much ado about nothing. After all, British Columbia is heading into an election in a few months and elections have long been celebrated as the ultimate accountability mechanism—the chance, as they say, to “throw the bums out.”

While elections are an important mechanism of accountability, accountability also requires compelling the government of the day to provide information about its decisions, behaviour and policies—in short, holding government to account. Members of legislative assemblies who are not part of the executive have a responsibility to ask questions, extract those accounts and to scrutinize them. Because we do not expect governments to commit political hara-kiri, parliamentarians’ primary responsibilities include holding government to account: scrutinizing government performance and administration and either withdrawing or extending confidence. The government’s capacity to disrupt its ability to do so undermines the efficacy of our parliamentary system. As Peter Aucoin and I have argued:

Without robust parliamentary scrutiny the system can easily slide into what commentators like to label an “elected dictatorship,” namely, a parliamentary government where the Prime Minister operates without significant checks and balances from the legislative assembly of the people’s representatives.

When a legislative assembly can be sidelined—in addition to normal concerns about opposition incompetence or ineffectiveness—the government is able to operate in greater secrecy. As Stephen Harper put it so clearly in an op-ed on government transparency and potential reforms to the Information Act that was published by the Montreal Gazette when he was leader of the opposition:

Information is the lifeblood of democracy. Without adequate access tokey information about government policies and programs, citizens andparliamentarians cannot make informed decisions, and incompetent orcorrupt government can be hidden under a cloak of secrecy.

While Harper did not address the sitting of legislatures in the essay, the same principle applies: a robust democracy requires that governments must not be able to unduly interfere with the flow of information to citizens.

Voters rarely, if ever, have full information when they cast their ballots. This means citizens vote in in a state of relative darkness, inhibiting their ability to fully hold the government to account. Worse still, they can be seen as conveying electoral legitimacy, when, had they been better informed, they might well have voted differently, even to the point of the election a different government.

Having severely limited the legislature’s ability to hold it to account, the government will effectively be asking the citizens of British Columbia to cast their ballots in the dark this May. These are dark days for democracy indeed.

Mark D. Jarvis is a doctoral candidate at the University of Victoria. His 2011 book, Democratizing the Constitution: Reforming Responsible Government, co-authored with Lori Turnbull and the late Peter Aucoin, was awarded both theDonner and Smiley book prizes. Mark adapted some of the book’s proposals for a contribution to our series on the House last year. You can find more information about the book here.

]]>http://www.macleans.ca/politics/the-absentee-b-c-legislature/feed/16Running away from the legislaturehttp://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/running-away-from-the-legislature/
http://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/running-away-from-the-legislature/#commentsTue, 16 Oct 2012 14:44:02 +0000Aaron Wherryhttp://www2.macleans.ca/?p=303794Peter Loewen condemns Dalton McGuinty’s use of prorogation.
Is McGuinty’s comportment worse than Harper’s? Almost certainly. The Premier has announced he is proroguing the legislature for a substantially longer period …

Is McGuinty’s comportment worse than Harper’s? Almost certainly. The Premier has announced he is proroguing the legislature for a substantially longer period of time. Yet he insists that he will govern. Conveniently, he will do so without the hassle of securing opposition support. In the meantime, he will avoid scrutiny over decisions on the energy file that appear worse by the day. And he will step down from the government before the legislature returns. When that will happen remains undefined.

This is not merely a resetting of the clock. It is a wholesale flight from responsibility.

These actions violate the basic premise of responsible government: that the house or legislature, as the case may be, is actually in session in order to fulfill its fundamental responsibilities: to review government legislation, to scrutinize government administration and to extend or withdraw confidence as it deems fit. These developments should be disconcerting to us all.

]]>http://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/running-away-from-the-legislature/feed/41Our troubled Househttp://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/our-troubled-house/
http://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/our-troubled-house/#commentsMon, 07 May 2012 12:00:15 +0000Aaron Wherryhttp://www2.macleans.ca/?p=257227The New Democrats have called a news conference for 10:30am this morning to outline their “plan for ensuring a full study of the Conservative’s omnibus budget bill.” Thomas Mulcair mused…

The New Democrats have called a news conference for 10:30am this morning to outline their “plan for ensuring a full study of the Conservative’s omnibus budget bill.” Thomas Mulcair mused this weekend of both “parliamentary” and “legal” options, while environmental groups are planning a national ad campaign.

Franks says he’s long been worried about the excessive number of Commons committees. The whole point of the committee system is to allow a small group of MPs to develop expertise in certain areas and, hence, to provide meaningful, quasi-independent input on legislation and important issues of the day. That can’t happen if MPs don’t have time to learn the files.

… That said, Franks believes excessive partisanship is the bigger problem underlying the ineffectiveness of Canada’s committee system. And he doesn’t blame the Harper Conservatives for that, at least not exclusively … The root of the trouble, as Franks sees it, is the inordinate control party leaders in Canada exercise over their MPs, from their ability to dictate who may run in an election to their power to punish those who break ranks.

]]>http://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/our-troubled-house/feed/0Power, Parliament and the Prime Ministerhttp://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/power-parliament-and-the-prime-minister/
http://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/power-parliament-and-the-prime-minister/#commentsFri, 04 May 2012 20:57:34 +0000Aaron Wherryhttp://www2.macleans.ca/?p=257187Donner winners Mark Jarvis and Lori Turnbull argue that the Prime Minister has become too powerful.
In the House, the prime minister and government have considerable control over day-to-day operations. …

Donner winners Mark Jarvis and Lori Turnbull argue that the Prime Minister has become too powerful.

In the House, the prime minister and government have considerable control over day-to-day operations. This allows governments not only to set the agenda, but to carry it out with ease. The prime minister commands the steadfast loyalty of his MPs, largely through a carrot-and-stick approach; co-operative MPs might be rewarded with cabinet posts or coveted committee positions, while rogues can be — and at times are — punished with removal from caucus or even barred from running as a candidate for the party in future elections. All of these are vestiges of prime ministerial power. The party caucus has little leverage with which to counterbalance the prime minister’s power because party leaders are chosen (and replaced) by the party at large, rather than by the caucus. Thus, the government’s MPs have no effective mechanism through which to stand their ground against a very powerful leader or effectively represent his or her constituents.

In a rebuttal, F.H. Buckley argues that the Canadian system is preferable to the current American system.

That Canada’s current economic situation is better isn’t necessarily an argument for our Parliament (as one wag joked on Twitter, it’s actually an argument for adopting China’s system of governance). That the Westminster model is more efficient has been noted by various observers over the last few years as the U.S. Congress has descended into dysfunction. But a simple either/or debate oversimplifies matters. The American system isn’t inherently dysfunctional: one of its biggest problems is a rule that didn’t exist until 1975. (The Senate is ripe for reform.)

Buckley concludes with a nod to Ruth Ellen Brosseau.

The genius of the Anglo-Canadian parliamentary system is the manner in which a prime minister is given the incentive to advance the national interest. A party leader who seeks support across the country must have the interest of the country as a whole in mind. If he concentrates government spending in one region only, he will lose support in other regions. That’s why strong a prime minister and a Parliament of nobodies better serves the country than the separation of powers and earmark-seeking Congressmen, like the late John Murtha of Pennsylvania (of the John Murtha Airport, John Murtha Center, etc.).

I’ll take Ruth Ellen Brosseau M.P. over Murtha any day. The comely member for Berthier-Maskinongé might not possess the legislative skills or ability to bring home the bacon, but a Parliament of Ruth Ellens more closely resembles the idealized assembly described by Edmund Burke in his Address to the Electors of Bristol, an assembly “of one nation, with one interest, that of the whole; where, not local purposes, not local prejudices, ought to guide.”

Setting aside the particulars cited—and why Ms. Brosseau has to be referred to here as “comely”—what is the choice here? Between a powerless nobody elected as a placeholder and a power-abusing Congressman elected because of his ability to “bring home the bacon?” Why is that the choice? Are there not dozens of examples of congressmen who have used their individual power and authority in a way that is consistent with what we’d like to see from our elected representatives? Isn’t this just an argument to ban earmarks?

As I read Mr. Burke’s address, it is an appeal to the judgment of the individual representative; that each is not merely a conduit for his or her constituents, but that “your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays, instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion.” That, in a way, is precisely what many of us seek for the parliamentary system. But in this case the problem is not that MPs are bound to their constituents, but that MPs are bound to their parties (or, more specifically, their party leaders).

If we’re deferring to ancient texts, I’ll go with Latin: primus inter pares. First among equals. That’s what our Prime Minister is supposed to be. Instead—and contrary to the either/or argument—we have something like a president who commands Parliament. The current U.S. Congress is not the alternative. It is merely a system that, in its own way, is in need of reform. If we reform ours, there are lessons to be found in how theirs has bogged down. But this is not a choice between Westminster and America. It’s a choice between the system we have and the system we’d like to have.

]]>http://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/power-parliament-and-the-prime-minister/feed/5In praise of democracyhttp://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/in-praise-of-democracy/
http://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/in-praise-of-democracy/#commentsWed, 02 May 2012 13:30:17 +0000Aaron Wherryhttp://www2.macleans.ca/?p=256253Last night in Toronto, the Donner Prize for the best public policy book in Canada was awarded to Democratizing the Constitution by Mark Jarvis, Lori Turnbull and the late Peter…

Last night in Toronto, the Donner Prize for the best public policy book in Canada was awarded to Democratizing the Constitution by Mark Jarvis, Lori Turnbull and the late Peter Aucoin. Mark graciously adapted some of the book’s proposals for a contribution to our series on the House last year.

You can read excerpts from Democratizing the Constitution here, here and here. And you can purchase the book here and here.

]]>http://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/in-praise-of-democracy/feed/1Saving the House of Commons (II)http://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/saving-the-house-of-commons-ii/
http://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/saving-the-house-of-commons-ii/#commentsMon, 05 Dec 2011 17:01:02 +0000Aaron Wherryhttp://www2.macleans.ca/?p=228475Further to this, Mark Jarvis chimes in via email with some of the other ideas discussed in Democratizing the Constitution.
-Adopt legislation limiting the size of ministries to a maximum …

-Adopt legislation limiting the size of ministries to a maximum of 25 individuals and the number of parliamentary secretaries to eight.

-Use secret preferential ballots to allow committee members to select Commons’ committee chairs for the duration of the parliamentary session.

-Adopt a set schedule for opposition days in the House that cannot be unilaterally altered by the government.

-Reduce the partisan political staff complement on Parliament Hill by 50 percent.

-Restore the power of party caucuses to dismiss the party leader.

-Remove the party leader’s power to approve or reject party candidates for election in each riding.

That last one goes hand in hand with amending the Elections Act. It also fits with what I tend to think should be the focus right now: changes that can be made with (reasonably straightforward) legislation and amendment. And, as noted by a few readers, I’d add one other: changing the guidelines to allow for CPAC to show more than the individual speaking. In the interests of objectivity, assigning television directors to show a “televised Hansard” makes a certain sense, but, at the very least, stationary cameras should be setup that feed live shots of the government and opposition sides to CPAC’s website. You shouldn’t have to go to the House of Commons to see what goes on there.

The 2012 prorogation would be substantively different. First, there is no obvious political land mine to avoid. Second, the Conservatives have demonstrated how majority status confers an immunity of sorts from even the most scathing criticism from the opposition benches. These factors make a potential upcoming prorogation less necessary from a political standpoint, but the fact remains: We live in a country where a prime minister can shut down the House, the pre-eminent institution of our parliamentary democracy, on a whim, for no particular reason.

In our new book, Democratizing the Constitution: Reforming Responsible Government, we argue that prorogations should occur only with the consent of a two-thirds majority of the House. This would place the balance of power in the hands of elected representatives, where it belongs. The House would have to consent to turning the lights off. If we allow the prime minister to unilaterally decide whether and when the House can perform its scrutiny function, we reverse the basic logic of responsible government, which dictates that the government must be accountable to the House. The two-thirds majority threshold is high enough to nearly always necessitate multiparty support.

Lori and the Globe make the common error of actually shortchanging Mr. Harper in this regard: as noted earlier this year, he has prorogued Parliament three times already, not twice.

]]>http://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/at-the-prime-ministers-whim/feed/47In defence of partisanshiphttp://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/in-defence-of-partisanship/
http://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/in-defence-of-partisanship/#commentsMon, 26 Sep 2011 16:48:19 +0000Aaron Wherryhttp://www2.macleans.ca/?p=217144iPolitics publishes an excerpt from Democratizing the Constitution.
There are several reasons why the House performs its critical functions so poorly, but partisan politics in the House is not one …

There are several reasons why the House performs its critical functions so poorly, but partisan politics in the House is not one of them. Partisanship is to robust democratic politics what competition is to an open economic marketplace. Partisanship flows from the fundamental democratic right to have one’s own political views, to organize politically with others of similar views, and, most important, to stand in opposition to others, whether these others are in power or not, and in the majority or not. This is why the opposition to the government in the British parliamentary system is called the “Loyal Opposition.” In opposing the government, it is not committing sedition, treason, or subversion against the state. On the contrary, it is performing a crucial democratic function. The opposition is recognized as legitimate in its criticism of the government.

]]>http://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/in-memoriam-3/feed/7Don’t get cockyhttp://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/dont-get-cocky/
http://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/dont-get-cocky/#commentsWed, 08 Jun 2011 16:14:36 +0000Aaron Wherryhttp://www2.macleans.ca/?p=196217Mark Jarvis manages to take issue with both sides of the Brigette DePape debate.
… the point here is simply that of all the reactions that DePape’s actions have generated, …

Mark Jarvis manages to take issue with both sides of the Brigette DePape debate.

… the point here is simply that of all the reactions that DePape’s actions have generated, it is unfortunate that greater reflection about what is needed to strengthen Canadian democracy and how best to address these needs have given way to overconfidence in the status quo.

You might remember Mark from previous posts like Three-part reform. The book he cowrote with Peter Aucoin and Lori Turnbull—Democratizing the Constitution: Reforming Responsible Government—is now on sale. You can read the first chapter here.

]]>http://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/dont-get-cocky/feed/9The House: Considering reformhttp://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/the-house-considering-reform/
http://www.macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/the-house-considering-reform/#commentsTue, 24 May 2011 18:00:40 +0000Aaron Wherryhttp://www2.macleans.ca/?p=193839Last month, Mark Jarvis wrote here about potential parliamentary reforms as part of our series on the House. Shortly thereafter he asked if I had any thoughts on what he’d …

Last month, Mark Jarvis wrote here about potential parliamentary reforms as part of our series on the House. Shortly thereafter he asked if I had any thoughts on what he’d written and eventually I got around to writing something down. In the interests of continuing the discussion, here is the email I sent to him last week.

Let me state from the outset that I am not a professional constitutional scholar. Or even an amateur constitutional scholar. I am merely paid to put on a suit most week days and spend inordinate amounts of time watching politicians more closely than is probably advisable.

My woeful inadequacies thus acknowledged from the outset, I will happily offer a few thoughts.

First and foremost, I’m a big fan of writing things down. Unwritten rules are easily ignored. At the very least, they leave much room for debate—in many cases, too much room for debate. As such, I support the idea of establishing our own version of New Zealand’s cabinet manual. For the sake of everyone involved, we should arrive at some universal understanding of the rules.

There is probably a pretty easy argument to be made that we—as a country, from the general population to the press gallery to the politicians—fundamentally misunderstand or, perhaps more accurately, mistreat the notion of minority government. Or at least that we have strayed in our popular perception from a strict academic reading of what a minority Parliament means. There’s a debate to be had about popular will, academic purity and what constitutes legitimacy in a democracy, but ultimately we need some basis of understanding for how our ancient system was designed to function.

Your three reforms would obviously go a step further, introducing new rules to that system, but they seem to me to be in keeping with the spirit of the system as I have come to regard it: where Parliament and the individual men and women residing there are supreme. They also have the happy consequence of dealing with the most powerful corrupting influence on minority parliament: the constant possibility of an election.

If there’s one thing that has most made a mess of the last three years it is this. That an election might result becomes the dominant factor in every discussion and every debate. It is the prism through which the events around Parliament are understood. It defines and dictates news coverage. Political leadership becomes a test of manhood based on one’s ability to force his rivals into difficult spots. One could spend a lot of time lamenting for this and talking about how it should be somehow different—much like the fabled question of decorum in the House—but I suspect change will require something in writing. Like it will if Question Period is to be reformed (as in the case of Michael Chong’s reforms). Like it will if MPs are to be more individually significant (in the case of amending the Elections Act).

Ultimately we are in need of two things: a widely agreed upon and written understanding of how our system is to work and meaningful parliamentary reform. We need both a guide and a few changes to the rules. Of the latter, we need to be—as you argue—clear, specific and grounded in law. Change can’t be some vague spirit, nor is it likely to be massive and sweeping (sorry fans of proportional representation). It will, in many ways, be technical. But unlike so much else, if done correctly, it will be real and lasting and vital to the most vital thing of all: our democracy.